Sea floor topography and backscatter intensity of the Hudson Shelf Valley Region.

This data set includes topography and backscatter intensity of the sea floor of the Hudson Shelf Valley, located offshore of New York and New Jersey. The data were collected with a multibeam sea floor mapping system on surveys conducted November 23 - December 3, 1996, October 26 - November 11, 1998, and April 6 - 30, 2000. The surveys were conducted using a Simrad EM 1000 multibeam echo sounder mounted aboard the Canadian Hydrographic Service vessel Frederick G. Creed. This multibeam system utilizes 60 electronically aimed receive beams spaced at intervals of 2.5 degrees that insonify a strip of sea floor up to 7.5 times the water depth (swath width of 100 to 200 m within the survey area). Maps derived from the mulitbeam observations show sea floor topography, shaded relief, and backscatter intensity (a measure of sea floor texture and roughness). The data are gridded at 12 m/pixel. THIS DATA SET IS PRELIMINARY; PUBLICATION OF A FINAL DATA SET IS PLANNED IN 2003